Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 553 Selfie Stick

Amidst the horrified gazes of the crowd, the man bent over, gripped the back of the chair beside him, and began to cough violently.

Blood mixed with dark brown bits of flesh splattered onto the ground and onto the female hunter's "corpse".

An uproar immediately erupted inside the carriage.

"He's infected! He's been infected by that woman's meme!"

"He's a hunter too! He's a secondary infection!"

"What is the route of infection? Is it through blood or contact? Could it be airborne infection?"

Panic gripped the crowd. Many instinctively covered their mouths and noses, while others pulled out gas masks from their bags.

A flicker of panic crossed He Dawei's eyes. He quickly grabbed his backpack, took out a mask, gloves, and other protective gear, and hurriedly put them on. As he did so, he said to the other three, "Hurry up! Put on whatever protective gear you can! Who knows how that meme is transmitted?"

Many hunters and mercenaries stood up and rushed to the front and back of the carriage, all hoping to get as far away from the two men as possible.

"Help...cough cough cough...help...me...cough cough cough cough!!!" The man coughed again before he could finish speaking.

This time, he coughed up a palm-sized fragment of an organ covered in black blood. After the fragment landed, it wriggled like a slug and crawled toward the nearest hunter.

"Don't come any closer!" The hunter turned pale with fright. He tried to back away, but there were already so many people behind him that there was no room for him to retreat.

In a moment of desperation, he took off his thin jacket, threw it on the ground to cover the writhing fragment of organ, and then kicked it!
"Plop—Crack!" A crisp cracking sound came from the coat on the ground, and dark red bloodstains instantly spread across the back of the fabric.

The hunter, whose face was ashen, immediately withdrew his foot and took several steps back.

The people behind him immediately stepped aside, as if afraid of being bumped into by him.

“Take off your shoes too!” a hunter shouted to him, “In case the soles of your shoes accidentally get stained with blood…”

"Yeah, just to be safe, your coat is soaked in blood, and the soles of your shoes are definitely dirty too!"

The hunter hesitated for a moment, but still took off his shoe and threw it forward.

The infected man did not seem to have lost his mind yet. He made weak cries for help intermittently, and black blood beads began to seep from the pores of his skin.

Cheng Ming's breath hitched.

For a fleeting moment, the man's figure overlapped with that of his deceased colleague.

Both of them were bleeding from their pores... The only difference was probably the color: Cheng Ming's colleague's blood was bright red, while the blood seeping from the man's pores was as black as ink.

"Wei... Brother Wei, what should we do?" Shen Rui asked, gripping the power bank tightly.

"If all else fails, we'll break the window and jump out of the car." He Dawei's voice came from under the gas mask, sounding somewhat muffled.

"Jump off a moving train? Are you crazy?" Yu Duo's eyes widened. "This is a high-speed train, traveling at 350 kilometers per hour! Even hunters with enhanced physical abilities would be badly injured if they jumped off at that speed! As for us... what do you think our chances of surviving if we jump off?"

“Zero,” Cheng Ming said. “Jumping out of the car is a dead end.”

"Then tell me, where is our way out now?" He Dawei looked at Cheng Ming.

"Wait," Cheng Ming said. "The route of infection seems to require direct blood-to-skin contact. If it were airborne, everyone in the carriage should already be showing symptoms. As long as we don't come into contact with the blood of those two infected individuals, we shouldn't be infected."

"Are we just going to wait like this? Do nothing?" Shen Rui asked.

"Hmm...we'll let the professionals handle these things at the next stop," Cheng Ming said.

“But we are all hunters…aren’t we ‘professionals’?” Shen Rui asked again.

"We're nothing!" He Dawei muttered. "If there were really any experts in this carriage, they would have made their move by now. Why would such a large group of people be huddled in a corner like a flock of quails?"

After being scolded by He Dawei, Shen Rui's expression darkened even more. He really didn't expect that he would encounter this situation on his first mission... He frantically recalled the various emergency response strategies that the instructors had taught them during training, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of how to deal with the situation in front of him.

Not only was he, a novice, at a loss, but even experienced "old hunters" like He Dawei couldn't think of a solution. The other hunters in the carriage chose the same approach as Cheng Ming—wait.

He Dawei was right about at least one thing—there were indeed no experts in this carriage.

Those elite hunters with names and titles, or the top free hunters, all have their own dedicated transportation to Dragon City. There's no need for them to squeeze onto the high-speed train with so many people... And in this carriage, the most senior hunter has only completed six missions.

In a sense, He Dawei and Cheng Ming, who had completed four missions, could indeed be considered among the more senior members of this train carriage.

"Damn it, I'm worried about one thing right now," He Dawei muttered.

"Wha...what is it?" Shen Rui asked.

“I’m afraid these two will explode,” He Dawei said.

"Exploded? Exploded?" Shen Rui was taken aback. "What do you mean by 'exploded'?"

"It's literally like it exploded," He Dawei said. "The human body expands like a balloon and then bursts open with a 'bang'."

“If it really explodes, this highly infectious contaminated blood will spread throughout the entire carriage,” Yu Duo continued, picking up where He Dawei left off. “No one will be spared.”

"Then... what should we do?" Shen Rui's breathing became more rapid. "What do you mean, what should we do? If it really explodes, there's nothing I can do," He Dawei said. "We can only pray that these two people don't undergo any sudden changes... at least, that nothing changes when the train arrives at the next station."

As soon as He Dawei finished speaking, there was a "plop" sound, and the man covered in blood knelt down and lay face down on the ground. He had stopped coughing, or to put it another way, he had coughed up everything he could cough up. Beneath him, a large pool of blood occupied almost one-fifth of the carriage, and in this pool of blood, many unidentified objects were still wriggling.

"This smell...it's awful." Yu Duo frowned and pinched her nose. "It smells like food residue that's been fermenting in my stomach for over ten hours...I wonder if this smell is infectious?"

"Who knows... If it were truly infectious, you should at least have some symptoms by now, right?" He Dawei turned and glanced at Yu Duo. "Where's your gas mask?"

"I shipped these things to Chang'an along with the weapons. I thought I wouldn't need them on the way," Yu Duo said with some regret.

"And what's in your bag? What's in your backpack that you carry with you?" He Dawei glanced at Yu Duo's backpack, which was packed full, and couldn't help but ask.

"Cosmetics, selfie stick, moisturizing and sun protection products... and a few sets of clothes to change into," Yu Duo whispered.

"Are you going on vacation or on a mission?"

Yu Duo didn't reply... In fact, for her, being a monster hunter was just a side job.

To be more precise, it's a "persona." Her real profession is a live streamer on a short video platform. Although federal law prohibits hunters from live streaming in their private capacity while hunting monsters, Yu Duo can live stream her daily life as a "freelance hunter." Plus, she's a woman with a decent appearance and figure; with makeup and beauty filters, she's just as good as those borderline beauty streamers. And the gimmick of a beautiful monster hunter is enough to keep viewers entertained; the income from live streaming alone is already much higher than what she earns from taking on missions.

She accepted the hunting mission in Nanhua Town. The sky-high bounty was one reason, but the main reason was that everyone online, whether in the hunter community or the general public community, was talking about it—which was an incredible amount of traffic for a streamer!

Even if the hunting process can't be live-streamed, taking some photos and videos of the journey, along with pictures of equipment and fellow hunters, writing some captions, having AI polish them, editing it all up and uploading it will instantly boost viewership. Then, during free time, you can do a live stream—you don't even need to show anything, just show your face, "casually" reveal the desolate, uninhabited area behind you, and brag a bit to the audience—and you can make a fortune just from tips.

Yu Duo had even planned that if she found the mission too dangerous after arriving in the Hexi Corridor, she would simply not go to the no-man's-land and stay in Longcheng to start a live stream. She estimated that she would earn a lot of money, and there would be no risk involved.

As long as she can get some of this traffic, she'll have achieved her goal.

But now... let alone starting the broadcast in Longcheng, it seems that even getting off this train safely has become a problem.

The man lying on the ground was now motionless. The blood that had seeped from his body had mingled with the blood of the female hunter, whose clothes were completely soaked with blood.

The part of her skin and muscle that was pressed against the ground began to dissolve. If this trend continued, it would probably be long before she completely dissolved into a pool of pus and blood.

"Has anyone reported the latest situation to the research institute?" a hunter suddenly asked. "Things have developed to this point, can't we at least stop temporarily?"

“I just reported it. The higher-ups said that sending people over to rearrange things now will take about the same amount of time as waiting for us to arrive at the station,” another person replied. “They told us not to touch anything related to the two infected people and to keep the scene as intact as possible…”

"Damn it, isn't that all nonsense?" a hunter with a short temper cursed. "Are the people upstairs just sitting around doing nothing? Let's cramm them into this carriage and see if they're not in a hurry!"

"Exactly! At least stop the train and let us off! Aren't they worried about the whole carriage getting infected?" another hunter complained.

"I'm sorry, I have something to say, but it might cause panic..." a bespectacled, scholarly-looking woman suddenly spoke up. "I don't know if I should say it..."

“Go ahead and tell me! Things have come to this point, I don’t think it can get any worse!” said the hunter who had just been complaining.

“The reason they won’t let us get off the bus is probably because they’re worried that we’ve all been infected,” the woman with glasses said. “If they let us off now, and one of us is already infected… then the situation will really get out of control.”

Everyone fell silent.

“Once we arrive at the station, we’ll probably be immediately quarantined. After repeated checks and observations, we won’t be allowed to go free,” the woman with glasses continued. “Until we’re sure the infection won’t spread further, in the eyes of those above, we’re already considered as infected people.”

"Damn it," a hunter cursed weakly, "What bad luck."

"What bad luck! I originally bought a ticket for another train, but something came up at the office that I had to take care of, which made me miss it, so I had to switch trains. And then this happened!" another person said angrily. "I should have canceled that damn thing! Damn it, it's too late to regret it now!"

“Speaking of which, has this woman’s identity been confirmed?” a young mercenary suddenly said. “Whether she’s a registered hunter or a free hunter, the Sky Tower should have her identity file, right? At least, if we figure out her identity, we can also find out what her meme is!”

"Yes, yes!"

"So who exactly is this woman?"

"Can anyone take a picture of her and upload it?"

"How are we supposed to film this? Her head is facing one side of the aisle, and if she wants to stick her phone out, she has to step on that pool of blood on the ground... Damn it, whoever wants to go can go, I'm not going."

"If we don't go now, this woman's face will probably melt into the filthy blood! Then we won't even have any pictures left!"

Just as everyone was passing the buck, Cheng Ming suddenly looked at Yu Duo and asked, "Do you have a selfie stick in your bag?"

"Yes. Wait, you mean..."

"Give it to me," Cheng Ming said.

Without hesitation, Yu Duo immediately found a selfie stick and handed it to Cheng Ming.

Cheng Ming attached his phone to the selfie stick, then used both hands and feet to slowly climb from above the back of the chair to the side of the two people, and extended the selfie stick down.

Half of the woman's face had melted away, and the features of the remaining half were now extremely difficult to recognize.

Cheng Ming took a deep breath and uploaded the photos he had taken.

(End of this chapter)